Leverage - Blind Fire

Published January 11 2008

*=Staff's pick	Shadow In The Rain King Of The Night* Stormchild Sentenced* Hellhorn Mister Universe* Don't Touch The Sun Run Down The Hill Heart Of Darkness Learn To Live

Genre	Melodic Metal	Pekka Heino	Vocals
Tracks	10	Toumas Heikkinen	Guitar
Runningtime	53 Min.	Torsti Spoof	Guitar
Label	Frontiers Records	Pekka Lampinen	Bass
Release	25 Jan. 2008	Valtteri Revenkorpi	Drums
Country	Finland	Marko Niskala	Keyboard
Similar artists	Thunderstone, Twilightning, Masterplan

Leverage made quite a stir in the melodic metal/rock community when they released their debut album Tides in 2006. Despite the fact that they are yet another melodic metal band from Finland, they rose above the masses simply because the quality of their performance and songwriting. At least that is what I have read and heard from others since yours truly only have experienced a couple of songs from that album, songs that to me sounded promising indeed.

Ever since the release of the debut album they have been busy writing material for the follow-up and toured throughout Finland at clubs and festivals. What I can tell directly when listening to Blind Fire is that it's a competent band from Finland. Yup, you just can't avoid that it's an obvious fact where they come from and that can be a positive aspect in some eyes and a negative in others. Nevertheless, they surely know what they are doing and it's quite impressing that they sound as experienced as they do already on their second achievement. The downside of things is the feeling that you have heard it all before a hundred times and that the album is a bit too even, the real big highlights are missing. I also would have wished for a few more up-tempo rockers to make the whole a bit more diverse.

Despite my criticism this is a high quality melodic metal release that fans of the genre most certainly could look upon as a must buy or at least something they should investigate further. My only problem is that I have heard a few too many albums sounding just like this which stops me from fully appreciate it. But with songs like Sentenced, King Of The Night and Mister Universe they prove that the hype isn't totally unfounded.

Performance	Originality	Production	Vocals	Songwriting
8	5	7	7	6

Summary
6,5 chalices of 10 - Hawk